Tales of adventures in quilting, gardening, photography and cooking from the Kingdom of Chiconia

Marcia comes for a visit

Tropical Cyclone Marcia, that is.

7pm, 18th February

10pm, 18th February

1am, 19th February

4am, 19th February

She’s currently making herself felt as a Category 1 about 250km (150 miles) off the coast of Mackay. She’ll be heading southwest, working herself up as she goes, and is forecast to be a Category 2 by the time she hits the coast.

The track is now slightly further north than the last forecast, which means we’re at the northern-most edge of the blow. It’ll be loud, wet and windy. We may lose power. There will certainly be flooding in Mackay, as all this activity is combined with a king tide and flood water won’t be able to get away easily. Near the epicentre, winds will be gusting up to 150kmph (90mph), at a conservative guess.

Next forecast is 8.00am. I’ve been watching since about 4.00am – the Husband is out there driving a double tanker with 51,000 litres of diesel, and I worry – but the track hasn’t changed significantly apart from moving a fraction north. Anything can happen. She can blow herself out, switch direction suddenly or get worse. Over the next few hours, unsurprisingly, I’ll be glued to the BoM website; the action is slow but the news is fascinating!

This time tomorrow, we’ll be entertaining Miss Marcia. Should certainly be an interesting visit…

29 thoughts on “Marcia comes for a visit”

She won’t be nice, but we know what to expect, so all the breakables will be put away. It’ll be like having an outsize toddler visiting: Lots of noise, lots of wetness and things left out will get broken!

I’ve been keeping a ‘weather’ eye on Miss Marcia too as the impact of her visit to you will be felt further south as well. Our house is high, dry and sturdy but it’s always a relief when it’s over.
I prefer guests who bring wine & chocolate not wind & water!
Thinking safe thoughts for you & HoC 🙂

Half an hour to the next bulletin, so we can see then if she’s being unpredictable. I think we’re going to be lucky, even though we’re within the warning zone; all the weather is trending south, and if we get anything nasty, it won’t last long.
I’m hoping for something exciting to photograph; the last one was in the middle of the night and useless from that point of view.

Watching BoM with you Kate….wet and windy here, and on the coast they’re losing beach and coastline with the big waves being whipped up….and it’s not even crossed land yet. Talking to an SES guy this morning, he said it’s predicted to do a big sweep over the coast, head south and west, then swing back out to the coast, crossing near Lismore……which means I’ll be in the thick of it. Good thing is it’ll be blown out by then, fingers crossed. I watch Higgins Storm Chasing as well, they have a Facebook page, and more in depth coverage than BoM, and more interesting….photos, videos and reall good explanations of all the lines and colours. Sending safe vibes for you and HoC.

We lost power an hour ago; the wind’s very strong although there’s not much rain yet. It’s really warm still, and the humidity is through the roof, so it’s a bit uncomfortable, but nothing worrying yet. I have to wait for the Husband to come home to take down a shade sail I can’t reach and help me move the last of the trees in tubs which are too heavy. For the rest, we’re ready. I’m crossing my fingers for you and all your animals, that you stay safe and sheltered. Whoah! Big gust of rain, must go and shut windows! More soon.

Latest: the wind’s really ramping up, I had to haul the trees myself, couldn’t wait for the Husband, two got blown over already. 2pm BoM bulletin says it’ll hit the coast as a Cat 3, about 100km south of us, in the middle of the night (of course!). Pressure’s plummeting, looks like we’re going to cop a bit of action! Power’s back on, thank goodness. Think I’ll go and stick something in the oven so we have hot food if it goes off again.

I just saw on Higgins it’ll cross the coast as a 3 and has moved a little further north with Mackay getting a lot of it now. Good idea to cook some food now while you can. Will hubby be home tonight, I hope so, not a good time to be on your own….I know you can cope ok, hence hauling trees by yourself…but it’s still better to have someone to be scared with and a hand to hold while you huddle under the table 🙂 Thinking of you x

Slow cooked shoulder of lamb, I reckon. HoC will be home tonight; it remains to be seen if the range is open tomorrow, he may not be able to go to work if there are trees down. I’m thinking it would be a good plan to go and fill the emergency water jerry cans, and I’m filtering several litres of drinking water so we won’t have to drink the nasty chloriney stuff you get after a storm. Good job I’ve got something to do!

The trick is to tidy up before she arrives! This is the first one of the season this year, so I can’t really complain… I would live in cyclone country, wouldn’t I? Thank you for the thoughts, hopefully we’ll get through it with just a disturbed night’s sleep.

I do apologise! I hadn’t realised quite how strong my worry vibes were… Please rest assured that we’re as well prepared as we can be and we leave the rest in the lap of the gods. The only thing we’re worried about is our old shed, which is long overdue for demolition. I hope we don’t find it, or the remains of it, three kilometres away.

The Hurrican of Christmas 1999 blew most of the corrugated iron roof of fthe barn Jock was converting into our home. Some of the sheets we found 3 fields away, some were never seen again and some of them hung down precariously so that Jock couldn’t work inside for several months while we waited for the roofer, in demand at that time, as you can imagine.

We have similar problems here, but also a marvellous organisation called the SES (State Emergency Service), manned by volunteers, who rescue, assist and generally turn out in all sorts of natural and unnatural crises to cut up fallen trees, put tarps on holed roofs, rescue people from floodwater, and so on. They’ll be busy…

The pompiers (firemen) have that function here, as well as being paramedics. They mended the roof of the house we were living in within a couple of days, but the barn was a building site, so low priority.

Hope you are all still safe! Nasty weather! Hope you husband is home. Hope he is safe too. 😀
Here everything is very calm and kind of boring, not that I mind though! Wind and rain/snow are just not my thing!
Bye
Esther

The thing I dislike most is how unpredictable they are once they get closer to shore, veering off in any old direction at random, seemingly. It makes preparation a necessity even if it was, as in this case, not needed in the end.

She has been a bad visitor for hundreds of people further south, and it will take weeks and perhaps months to repair all the damage. WInds of nearly 300kmph… I think your cats would get blown right away!